


A Complicated Story

by Falconette



Category: Free!
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 10:54:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5124866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falconette/pseuds/Falconette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>several years after college, Rin is a busy pro athlete whose girlfriend and best friend live in the same town, the two of them sharing a secret between them</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Complicated Story

**Author's Note:**

> A one-sitting doodle in prose, written around an image that appeared out of nowhere of a girl cheating on Rin with Sousuke. Yeah, ouch. Written to the song “This Mess We’re In” by Thom Yorke & PJ Harvey.

## A Complicated Story

We saw Rin off at the airport and Sousuke took me back with his car. Only, he didn’t take me back to my and Rin’s place in that silent ride and I made no protests when the vehicle took the well known route to his bachelor apartment. His smoldering gazes that lingered on me during red light intervals and the fervency with which he pressed on the gas pedal conveyed what his words didn’t. Unlike Rin, he seldom spoke of what was going on in his head, but his longing was written all over his face, in his fingers that started towards me and backed off a dozen times, in his burdened silence.

His hands were hugging my hips the moment the elevator door closed, giving us the first moment of privacy away from the public eye and Rin’s company in weeks. Sousuke lowered his chin and leaned into me, claiming my lips without asking for permission. I didn’t resist, dissipating in the warmth of his breath, the pleasant scraping of his stubble against my cheek, trying not to think about Rin, the scents of their skins melting into one single, chlorine flavored smell of a Man.

I closed my eyes, letting my body go almost limp in his arms, confident he will support me, effortlessly, like he always does, making me feel like floating, flying, being completely free of responsibility, ambiguity and guilt. Even for a little while.

My hands, alive with cravings of their own, already caressed the back of his neck and his thick hair, the imprints of Rin’s palms, face, body still vivid in their memory. No, his were not the long, slick locks, but the unruly and bushy ones, my hands knew and relished the sensation, like meeting an old friend. Or a lover. Or, alas, both at once.  

“I’ve missed you…” he mumbled with lips pressed against the skin of my neck, nuzzling me gently, uncharacteristically wasting words without really needing to. The desolation of being close but unable to touch me was getting harder and harder on him each time, lying to his best friend equally so.

But still, he held me firmly to his body, possessively and hungrily, like a dragon would his trove, as if the act itself would assimilate our bodies and eliminate the longing, erase the wrongness of it all.

The elevator chimed unexpectedly and his embrace hurriedly blossomed, letting me stand on my own two feet again, my hands fixing my hair in nervous, automatic gestures. Sousuke straightened up and assumed the aloof air of indifference and authority as he nodded to neighbors who were waiting to enter the small space, making us both shuffle to the back, each to one corner. The door closed and up we went, together with the tense silence of strangers cooped up in a small space staring at the display and the count of digits. 

Above, from the corner of his eye, I could tell his turquoise orb was fixed on me, radiating longing, again so maddeningly close and far away.

The elevator chimed for the second time and this time it was our turn to cause the commotion in the booth, smiling politely at the strangers as we stepped out into the corridor and headed towards the apartment door. Sousuke didn’t risk touching me anymore before we were inside, safe and secure in his little piece of the world.

Rin used to joke about how Sousuke’s place was a perfect love nest for having girls over end enjoying casual flings, giving Sousuke a knowing wink and a grin. Sousuke would reply with a hint of a mysterious smile at that, careful not to meet my gaze, confirming Rin’s words in his mind. At times like that, when Sousuke and I would share more secrets that Rin and I did, I would feel the sting inside, the scalding bite of guilt and self loathing.

Strangely, tragically, the bitterness could not compare to the sweetness Sousuke’s touches and presence elicited from me. 

It was not an affair Sousuke and I were having, it was a thing far more complicated and sinister than that. He was Rin’s best friend and I was Rin’s girlfriend, that is how we were introduced and that is how it was for a long time. None of us sought another for sex or pastime entertainment. During the years, as Rin’s absences became more frequent and longer, what got us together was the Rin we both loved and missed. He always seemed to be with us, physically or in thought, connecting us and bringing us together like two ships in the night guided by a lighthouse en route to an unavoidable collision. 

Even now, at times like these, when Sousuke used his strength and weight to gently but persistently nudge my body towards his bed and my mind was getting blurred by the simmering passion inside me, Rin, sitting in a plane somewhere, was with us. I could tell that from the feverish necessity Sousuke’s fingers searched my skin, claiming it, striving to erase Rin’s fingerprints off it. His kisses burned, the tongue burrowing deep, conquering, marking his territory, his arms reluctant to let go even to undress me. Sousuke’s touches mixed with ones Rin imprinted on me this morning, when he woke me up early to make love to me before his departure. 

My back hit the yielding sheets and he was hovering above me, one of his wide palms between my shoulder blades to cushion my fall. I wanted to see his face while caressing his cheek, to dive into those eyes and let the tide he stirred inside take me away, but it was so much easier to kiss him with my eyes closed, to give in to his touches and climb the steep ladder of pleasure in the self imposed darkness.

That way, I could lie to myself that I didn’t know which one of them was touching me, having me, thinking I was his.

We undressed each other laying down, grappling, wrestling, clutching blindly, the hasty movements fueled by guilt and lust performed so many times before, letting our bodies slide against each other, the friction of skin and sweat and sheets making it worth it more with each passing moment. I raked my nails across his firm chest, cupping the bulge of his shoulder, the one that was never quite the same even after all these years, and kissed the taut skin, snaking my legs around his narrow hip bones, letting him bite my neck and lick the pleasant pain right off.

His strong arms cradled my body, his loins digging, searching, penetrating between my slippery lower lips, filling me with his bulk and his heat, my trembling flesh in turn cradling his. It was the moment I always had the most trouble telling them apart, even though their physiques, their lovemaking and their smell were not similar at all, but the feeling of being connected, merged with another body carried the same significance. And I let it flood through me.

After several urgent thrusts, just enough to sate the worst hunger, Sousuke’s kisses became feathery pecks on my lips that were almost bruised and bloodied from his ravenous offensive and his body undulated like gentle waves of a calm sea. My pelvis moved slowly and steadily beneath his weight, matching his rhythm, allowing him to touch me on the inside in ways he could never manage himself, as I relished the tender trysts of our lips. Without explanation, we – the partners in crime - understood. We both needed this, the confirmation our love was real, healing and beyond a mindless, carnal instinct. 

When he eventually moved away to look at me, his eyes were soft in a way even Rin had rarely seen. So deep was our affection, so deep our treason.  
“I cannot do this anymore.” He finally uttered. There was a pained twist on his brow, but his low voice carried a resolute undertone. Of course it would, Sousuke would not waste his words on something from a sphere of doubt or indecisiveness. What surprised me was that it was him, and not me, who caved in first.

“Do you understand?” he shook me slightly, the twist in his brow deepening after I made no attempt at an answer. It was he who did not understand. I dreaded this moment for so long, I have been through it so many times in my head, coming up with different replies and speeches until I realized there was nothing to say. 

Just as it had a million reasons to exist, this relationship of ours had another million to perish. It was only a question of choice to which ones we will turn a blind eye to, and for how long. There really was nothing to say. If he wanted to stop this insanity, what was there to understand? 

“I want you only for me.” Sousuke’s voice was even lower now, like he ventured to say something he barely dared. His eyes were shining. “What do you…?”

An unexpected tear slid down my cheek, hushing him, as I realized I hadn’t understood after all. But, in the end, it changed nothing. There were no easy answers in a complicated story.  With his body comfortably shielding mine, still inside me, Sousuke’s long fingers brushed the hair off my forehead in an intimate gesture gazing at my face like he was looking at me for the last time. 

There was something pleading in his voice, his expression, something so very unfamiliar to me about him.

“We will both betray him then…” I breathed numbly, feeling my skin suddenly getting cold. Did Rin feel we were talking about him, somewhere in the air, far above us and our crime?

“Aren’t we already!?” Sousuke’s piercing yell was a mixture of anguish and dismay of a man that has hit the wall. A desperate man. He didn’t mean to scare me, his hand continued with the soothing caress despite the difficulty with which he sought his next words.

“I was always losing to Rin, ever since we were kids he would always somehow top me. Sometimes it was luck, sometimes skill, but that’s the way things were. He always got what he wanted.” Sousuke’s gaze became unfocused as he recalled the days long past in a place far away. “And I was ok with that.”

His gaze then focused on me again, his voice gaining strength, “But I am not ok with this, not anymore.” He paused for a moment, aware of gravity of his words, “I will tell him.” 

“Even if I decide not to…” I started without finding the strength to finish the thought. Where, then, will I find the strength to make the choice?

Sousuke exhaled heavily, a determined line twisting his mouth, but his eyes remained warm nevertheless. “Then I will just tell him that I fell in love with you, but that you refused me so I will not be around anymore. Even if it means losing both him and you…” His voice got stuck in his throat, the prospect too bleak to contemplate at this moment, when his heart was beating so close to mine they eavesdropped on each other. His heart was calm, his choice had been made. 

“I could never tell if you continued being with him because the truth would ruin our friendship,” he commented, half to himself, “Or was I still losing to him, after all these years.” 

I could not stop the tears anymore, the passion and strength and will all drained from me. There was a comfortable weight and warmth of a man’s body on top of mine and if I had to say whom I wished it belonged to… the pictures of my both lovers, their lips, moans, secret smiles, ecstatic expressions all blurred in my mind’s eye like a deck of precious cards thrown around by a strong wind, hitting me one by one like razor blades. 

Only one to choose between them, without the right choices to be made.  

I hid my face with my hands, sobbing uncontrollably, wishing I was the one in the air, above this mess we were all in, even though some of us didn’t know it yet.


End file.
